


Succulents Never Die!

by kinaesthetic



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Slice of Life, it's still in universe but it's just the chill part of the time, plants are great, succulents are great, they're girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-10 17:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11696406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinaesthetic/pseuds/kinaesthetic
Summary: Wanting to impress Fareeha, Angela approaches horticulture like she does everything else: with hours of research, cutting technology, and utmost devotion. Unlike everything else she has ever tried, she is not even close to perfect.Heroes may never die, but plants are not quite heroes.





	1. Philodendron

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to all the plant lovers in my life, especially my roommate/bestie because I basically threw everything that we both know about plants at Fareeha...and let Angela be herself because let's face it, she thinks she doesn't have time for plants.  
> Listen, our windowsill is full of plants okay. We don't have a problem, but every time there's a plant sale, we bring more kids home. We can stop anytime we want okay??? >>  
> This is completely stand alone fic. Has nothing to do with any other series I have, but this is indeed the one that I started in Aprill and mention a couple of times in the ANs of SFV.

Angela doesn’t lose. She hasn’t lost anything in a very long time, perfect as she is. She doesn’t lose patients or friends or games or battles or arguments.

It’s been years and she can could count on one hand how many times she’s lost people. Death, as Satya always says, is an illusion. In their line of work, it’s always true. Even when she’s not actively healing and protecting her team on the battlefield, she’s sorely reminded of her old friends who avoided their graves. If you could choose, wouldn’t you want to stay alive? She does; there’s so much work to be done.

It’s Fareeha who suggests that she start keeping plants because Fareeha loves to mention these types of things casually, hoping that Angela will leave her office and take care of herself more often. Over dinner one night, the medic casually mentions being sick of the standard pale blue walls of Gibraltar residential quarters. After a bit of needling, Fareeha finds out that Angela hasn’t added a shred of personality to her room, opting to leave it blank. Following an impassioned rant about making one’s space a safe haven, Angela makes an effort to add some color- a soft red rug, a purple beanbag, a throw blanket, a brightly patterned shower curtain for the bathroom. Little things.

“The air’s still stale, Ange _._ You can’t live like this. Nothing’s alive in here; a plant would do you some good,” Fareeha pleads, looking around at the “new and improved” decor that Angela was so excited to show her. Seeing Angela crestfallen, she adds: “But I like the beanbag. It’s an nice orchid color.”

Angela takes that as a sign. She does some research and starts keeping notes on plant care. She orders two grow lights, a dozen pots, and three types of soil. Then, she buys an orchid from a local grocery store during her next shopping trip. Fareeha smiles when she sees it, listening gamely to Angela as she rattles off all the instructions for proper orchid care.

The set up is impressive. Angela converts a corner of her room into an area for pots, complete with grow lights hanging on anchors drilled into the wall, timers, a cleverly rigged irrigation system, and a fan for a gentle breeze. Never let anyone say that Angela half-asses anything. With her orchid on schedule for daily light and water, Angela left for a two-week mission in Rio.

When she returns, her orchid is dead. It’s shriveled. Gray fuzzy mold covers the soil and only the support pole stands upright any longer. The vibrant flowers that had led her to pick it out have dessicated to unrecognizable plant matter.

When she checks her set up, Angela realizes that the power must have fluxed soon after they left, shorting out the timer. In darkness, mold flourished in the wet soil and choked the orchid to death. She checks and double checks if she can give it a second life via a cutting, but it was well and truly beyond her help.

To her credit, Fareeha doesn’t laugh when Angela seeks her out and bitterly announces the orchid’s approximate time and cause of death. “Orchids can be difficult for beginners,” she responds and takes her by the hand to her room, right next door to Angela's.

Angela’s jaw drops at how personal Fareeha has made her Gibraltar quarters. Her bright blue and gold comforter was the first thing one saw upon entering the room, even if the bed was closer to a corner. Nearby was her reading nook, complete with an armchair and a small bookshelf with a reading lamp clamped to it. Her soft shag carpet is an improvement on the standard carpeting; predictably, shag made a comeback in the 2060s, but now their bamboo fibers made them easier to clean.

Beneath the porthole window is where she keeps her garden. Right now, it’s open, letting in the ocean breeze and warm summer air. Several philodendron vines curl around the frame, hung on hooks well spaced around the window. Their leaves angle toward the sunlight. A reasonable collection of exotic plants were arranged on the windowsill and on a elegant set up in front of the window. Fareeha has built an amphitheatre for plants to sit at various levels. Angela identifies an African violet in bloom, a few tulips, a multitude of waxy leaved succulents, and many, many plants she does not recognize. On the stage of the amphitheater, Angela realizes, the vines of the philodendron vines lay their roots in tall vase of water.

“Where’s the dirt for this?”

Fareeha laughs softly at her shocked tone. “They don’t need it. Some plants are good with just water and sunlight for a just a little while but philodendrons can go forever without dirt. It’s actually what I’m about to give you.”

Angela tries not to feel insulted that she can’t be trusted with a plant that needs dirt. She accepts the cutting with grace, along with a small vase that Fareeha pulls out of a bin underneath the amphitheatre.

Back in her own room, Angela sets the philodendron on her desk, then turns to study her elaborate set up. She unplugs the grow light, dismantles the irrigation system, and opens her blinds. The vase sits in the center of the windowsill. Ever so carefully, she positions the two leaves to face the setting sun.

Just water and sunlight? She can handle that.

A few days later, she notices a third leaf poking out of the vine. Angela all but kicks down Fareeha’s door down with excitement, dragging her over to behold the bright green growth. This time, the Egyptian woman does laugh heartily, pausing only to congratulate the doctor on her success. She blushes, marveling at how the younger woman’s teasing is delightful, but never patronizing.

Over the next few months, Angela watches the vine grow. She gets a bigger vase and builds a small trellis out of popsicle sticks to allow it to climb, then drills hooks into the walls when it outgrows that.. She stopped counting the leaves after it got over two dozen, marveling instead at the small jungle.

As her journey in horticulture continues, Fareeha invites her to peruse the local plant sales with her. In addition to the summer pop-up plant sales, Angela goes to farmer’s markets with her every other weekend now, wandering the stalls for fresh produce as well as plants. Thus far, Angela’s adopted the following: a tiny spider plant that now resembles a small bush, a fruiting and flowering cactus that’s bloomed over a dozen times since she bought it, three jades of different varieties and an aloe vera that she keeps in the med bay. She finds it easier to talk about the plants as if they are kids or pets, a habit she picks up from Fareeha. They both name their plants. Angela prefers strikingly ironic names like Maple, Oak, Audrey II, and Birch; Fareeha claims she names her plants based on personality but a large number of her succulents are named for their resemblance to cat paws: Toe Bean, Bento (Bean-toe), Squish, Beanie. Others have names such as Jerry or Kelpie. Half as a joke, half as serious documentation, Angela starts a scrapbook for their plants, complete with stickers and old timey polaroids. Fareeha thinks it’s the cutest thing in all of the Watchpoint.

She texts Fareeha pictures of her plants whenever she feels they make noticeable progress, since the plant master sends her pictures of her own plants all the time. Between their missions and duties, they find time to share and their conversation history consists almost entirely of plant pictures at this point.

[Want another kid or four?]

The midday text accompanies a picture of several detached succulent leaves on a paper towel. Though she’s in her lab, Angela responds quickly, curious about care and species among other things.

Rather than send her the low-down, Fareeha sends the species names. Angela finishes up her testing and while she waits for the results to come back, she starts researching. All the leaves belong to from the crassula family. One leaf is from a jade and the three others are from some things she can’t pronounce.

When Angela knocks on Fareeha’s door later that evening, she’s greeted with the sight of Fareeha in patterned pajama pants and a purple tank top. She smiles wide and invites her into the room. Angela follows her to her bed and watches as she rolls onto it carefully. Spread across a flat board at the foot of her bed, are succulents of various types, potting soil, and an assortment of pots and tools. She watches as Fareeha goes to grab one of the leaves, then looks back up at her.

“You’ve gotta see this up close, silly goose.” She pats the spot next to her. Angela hurries over to wriggle next to her on the bed; their hips bump a bit, being that the full size mattress is not suited for personal space. Once she’s settled, Fareeha gently plucks a leaf off the base of Bento, leaving behind a round scar on the stem. She places the leaf in a pot with the others and mists it gently. Angela coos at the set up. The broken pot has been rearranged, shards as into a small stair to the open mouth. There’s already several small hens and chicks succulents nestled on the steps with the other leaves arranged .

“I wanted to make this for you. You’ve already grown a lot when it comes to plants, so those are the steps. The hens and chicks are how far you’ve already come. Then the little leaves up here will sprout new plants and it’ll be a little garden of new succulents just for you.”

“Fareeha, this is adorable,” Angela pokes at the soft spikes of the hens and chicks. “You took your own plants and gave me my own through them. This means so much to me.”

“Likewise.” She ducks her head, pleased. “I didn’t think you’d take such an interest in my silly little hobby.”

“It’s not silly!” Angela slaps her hand over her mouth, surprised at her own exclamation. “Sorry, I...it truly isn’t. I enjoy the plants. I enjoy spending time with you too. It makes everything else so much more bearable.”

Stunned, Fareeha watches with interest as blush creeps from Angela’s face to her ears; the blonde busies herself with stroking the hens and chicks.

“Angela?” Fareeha tries to ignore the high pitched squeak of her own voice. The woman next to her turns and meets her gaze with a raise of an eyebrow. “Am I reading too much into these last few months?”

She bites her lip before answering very neutrally, “You are not reading too much into this at all.”

It’s Fareeha’s turn to blush. “Could I kiss you then?”

Angela reaches over to push all the plants a bit further away from them, then turns back to Fareeha. “I don’t want us to knock any of them over. Yes, yes you can kiss me.”

Fareeha leans in and captures Angela’s soft lips with her own. She leans back after a moment, flushed with joy. “To be honest, the plants were already a surprise but I didn’t expect you to take an interest in me as well.”

Angela props herself up on one elbow so she can regard her properly, then smiles brightly. “Don’t be so surprised, Fareeha. You’re perfectly easy to fall for.”


	2. Aeonium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela adopts a sickly child from the supermarket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! the sequel chapter that no one, including me, asked for, and yet, just like me, i think you'll enjoy it.

For a Sunday afternoon, the supermarket is relatively empty. Only two lines display active lights. An omnic attendant at the self-checkout nods as the smiling couple pushes their cart past the kiosks to continue their shopping. Fareeha crosses another few items off the list, humming. Angela glances back at the produce and food section as they cross the store toward the household section, then cranes her neck to look over at the list.

“Did we get Hana’s ice cream? And Lena’s gelato?” Angela reconsiders her line of inquiry just as Fareeha opens her mouth. “No, I suppose not. We’ll get them on the way back?”

Fareeha nods, a smile on her face as she covers one of Angela’s hand with her own. The blonde loosens her grip on the cart's handle and tangles their fingers together. Using her hip to keep the cart on course, Fareeha hems and haws at the list once more.

“Bird feed for Bastion’s feeders and chicken wire for your philodendron...I should grab a few pots, too. The end of the season means they’ll be clearing inventory to make room for Christmas. ”

Angela peers toward the other end of the store and sure enough, she can see workers unpacking pallets of boxes. Though it’s just now September, Halloween decorations have been out since late August. It’s no surprise that the fake trees have arrived as well. Being that it’s far too early for fresh pines, the greenhouse section still houses plants and gardening supplies. The couple greets the employees as they push their cart through the open aisle, smiling as they look up.

As they arrive at the end of the section, Fareeha pauses at the automatic doors and frowns at the perishables in the cart. “Angela, perhaps you should stay out here with the cart?”

“Sure! I’ll make room for the pots,” Angela says, parking the cart to the side and rummaging in the groceries. “It’s too hot in there anyw-” Fareeha presses a chaste kiss to her lips, startling a squeak out of the shorter woman.

“I’ll be right back,” Fareeha says with a smirk. Angela watches her strut through the sliding doors and disappear among the trellises, soil, and garden hoses. Flushing, she looks over her shoulder, catching the eye of one of the employees. She ducks her head and busies herself with freeing up a larger corner in the basin of the cart. There’s only so much stacking and organizing she can do in the end: cans stacked upon cans, cold foods huddled together, bread balanced atop produce. She straightens up and turns her gaze toward the greenhouse doors once more.

Just ahead of the doors, a sparsely populated display rack holds a few sickly orchids, some bromeliads and the remnants of what used to be a bustling succulent set. From here, Angela sees only one remaining plant and its yellow sticker shines like a lighthouse on a stormy night.

Angela grabs her purse and phone- surely no one will bother a cart of groceries- and darts into the greenhouse. It’ll only take a minute to investigate.  
  
  
Fareeha lowers her armful of terracotta pots into the cart, trying not to tip the stacks of canned vegetables as she does so. Angela stands to the side, holding the matching terra cotta saucers for the pots. They get the supplies settled, including the wild bird seed and an unplanned bag of potting soil that Fareeha tosses on the flatbed under the cart. It isn’t until Fareeha begins to push the cart toward the main store that she notices a small plastic pot tucked next to their stack of eggs. She smiles softly and glances over at Angela, who’s suddenly become very interested in a passing display of women's t-shirts.

The three cartons in the toddler seat barely obscure the tips of the plant, stretching up for sunlight that clearly never arrived. Frowning, Fareeha takes a closer look at the succulent. Its crown of healthy leaves balances delicately on a tall stem. The stem itself bears scars of lost leaves, four of which are still attached. One of those withers visibly, yellow and shrunken. The other three look well on their way to death; their pallor pains her to see. Even if it makes a recovery, it will not be an easy one.

“And whose charity case is this?” She asks lightly. Angela turns to her with a sheepish grin.

“Mine, of course!” When Fareeha simply raises an eyebrow, she pouts. “I can save it! I’ve learned enough.”

“I don’t doubt that you could save it.” Steering around a mother and her toddlers, Fareeha looks ahead, then back at the little plant, her gaze sympathetic. “I’m just saying that it’s a tough case for your first plant rescue.”

Undeterred, Angela grabs two cartons of gelato from the freezer ahead of the cart and flounces back. Fareeha matches her impassioned gaze evenly as she drops them in. “I know it won’t be easy but I wasn’t gonna let him sit there and die!”

“ _Him_ ? I was gone for ten minutes; please tell me you're not attached.” Angela shrugs at her deeply disapproving expression. She pushes the cart to follow the blonde as she marches off for ice cream next. “Angela, I’m not even joking; it could be dead within a week.”

“I know how to do my research. I’ll dust off his roots, re-pot him, and sit him in the sun. A hint of spritzing and Tumbleweed will be good as new.” Angela places the ice cream in the cart and begins tugging the cart around to head back to the cashier. Fareeha pushes the cart dutifully, shaking her head all the while. Even with her expertise, naming always comes  _after_ a recovery. She watches her girlfriend square her shoulders as she marches to the nearest open lane.

Fareeha sighs. “It’d better not end up on my windowsill after a few days.”

“He won’t! Tumbleweed is my patient,” Angela chirps, stacking food on the conveyor belt. She sticks her tongue out at Fareeha when she heaves another sigh.

“You don’t even know what it is. ” She plucks the plant out of the cart once more and examines the bright yellow clearance label with disdain. “It’s a supermarket; it’s labeled ‘novelty succulent’. It has no pedigree…”

“Hush your grumping. He’s my plant; I’ll take care of him. And I know he’s in the _crassulaceae_ family at least.”

Fareeha peers over the plant at Angela’s cheeky grin, the edges of her lips quirking upward in response. She sets Tumbleweed on the conveyor, just after the eggs.

“Mhm, very clever. You’re right and _just_ cute enough that I’m going to ignore that literally most succulents are _crassulaceae_ .”  
  
  
After the groceries are put away, Angela spreads her small tarp over Fareeha’s carpet while the latter puts her pots and soil away. It takes a few trips from her room, but she arrives in with her small collection of succulents and Tumbleweed, a bag of soil, a bowl of pebbles, and a bag of sand. By the time she’s settled in with her purple beanbag and tablet, Fareeha has settled in to work at her desk. Angela spends a half-hour researching, posting pictures in several gardening forums, two of which immediately ping Fareeha’s phone.

“Don’t you dare answer that,” Angela says absentmindedly, already opening new tabs to do some research of her own. The Egyptian chuckles and simply skims the post before resuming work on her newest Raptora prototype. They work in companionable silence. Fareeha plucks at her projections with a delicate pen; Angela taps away in her studies.  Before long, Angela confirms a genus and updates her post. Tumbleweed apparently belongs to the Aeonium genus but the plant’s condition makes it nigh impossible to tell if its height is due to stress or genetics. An A. arboretum seems to grow a bit taller than the standard A. decorum, but most ground succulents will stretch higher to get more sunlight. Angela looks over to Bento, one of Fareeha’s crassulas, who met that very same fate.

She gets to her feet and tiptoes around her spread of materials to look at the plant amphitheater. Without touching, she peers at the moon shaped scars on Bento’s elongated stem where it lost leaves, the new stalks that branch off, each complete with their own crown of mini bean-leaves. Fareeha watches Angela in her peripheral vision, smiling as she nods determinedly and scampers back to her bean bag.

Angela unclips the soil bag and props it up against her leg. With her other foot, she toes the nearest trashcan close enough to grab. It nestles into one of the few empty spots of the tarps. With that, she begins.  
She deliberates between a clay pot and a plastic one for a split second before deciding on the clay one. The porous material will suit the overwatered succulent much better. The blonde begins to hum softly, dropping a handful of pebbles in the bottom of the vessel. Next, comes soil and sand, mixed carefully until the pot is about half-full. Angela gingerly grasps Tumbleweed’s naked stem and tugs, wrinkling her nose as she does so. She’s barely moved it over the trashcan to start dusting it off the roots when she feels a warm weight draped over her back and kisses pressed to her hair. Fareeha wraps her arms around Angela’s waist and looks at the sickly plant in her hand.

“Not to pick, but Tumbleweed doesn’t smell so good. What’s his diagnosis, Dr. Ziegler?”

Angela leans into the embrace and pulls the trash can closer to accommodate their positioning better. She starts at the bottom of the pot-shaped soil cake and crumbles it under her fingers. It’s dry but it smells even worse on the inside. She lowers it into the bin and picks at it with deliberate care, trying to get bigger pieces off of the roots as quickly as possible.

“Could be root rot, could be bad soil, but re-potting will address both.” She shrugs, jostling Fareeha’s chin a bit from where she’s settled on her shoulder. Before long, she unearths an impressive clump of roots. After one last shake, she deposits Tumbleweed in its new, more spacious pot. She holds the base steady until she grabs some more soil, then stabilizes the stem until it supports the full weight of the leaves again.

“Looking much better already,” Fareeha murmurs, watching her top off the soil with a few decorative pebbles and a sprinkle of sand. Angela turns and kisses her cheek. She sets Tumbleweed aside and picks up one of her other plants, a jade named Maple and repeats the re-potting process as Fareeha watches her.

Time passes quickly in this fashion. Sometimes the Egyptian holds a pot or grabs a runaway pebble, but otherwise, she stays elegantly draped over the smaller woman. After the sixth plant, Angela nudges Fareeha only to find that she’s snoring softly. She eyes the final plant, then the orange and purple sky beyond the windowsill. It’s not as if the plants will perish if they don’t return to the windowsill before sundown.

With a careful maneuver of feet and arms of both herself and her girlfriend, Angela manages to fit them both on the amorphous beanbag without waking Fareeha. She shifts a little bit in her sleep, murmuring something as Angela recenters herself in her embrace. She exhales slowly, closing her eyes as she does so. As she inhales, she smells dirt in the air, the curious scent of wet sand and soil, handsoap under Fareeha’s nails, her earthy smell that blends with her honeysuckle shampoo, and the remnants of carpet powder from its last vacuuming. She twines their fingers together once more, feeling their calluses, rooted in different places from staffs and scalpels and gauntlets and wrenches. She rubs the pad of her thumb over soft knuckles and snuggles closer, feeling the rise and fall of Fareeha’s chest behind her.

 _Yes,_ Angela thinks.  _The last plant can wait._  

The plants can afford to wait a few hours, watching over them while they steal this moment for themselves. Plants may not be eternal, but these little moments are even less so. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Tumbleweed is real I adopted him Sunday from my local Walmart and I didn't actually name him Tumbleweed but I feel like Angela wrestled with the question of Tumbleweed's mortality and the convention of naming children directly after birth which has changed over time and varies from culture to culture and then thought about The Scarlet Ibis, which is a good short story about mortality and naming, and decided that one way or another, she was gonna name him after something that is dead but brings life. And then she convinced me too. >.>  
> -I also don't know Tumbleweed's species for exactly the reasons mentioned here, because HE STRETCH. I was gonna write this a lot longer and show Angela's triumph with reviving him but I didn't wanna jinx the real Tumbleweed so you get this.  
> -I too came home, repotted Tumbleweed and then my entire windowsill of me and my roommate's succulents Sunday night on accident I meant to repot ONE. Art imitates life.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: succulents definitely die sometimes.


End file.
